Showdown: Is Duke Nukem sexist or all in good fun?

It's not all pigs and strippers in the real world: Duke Nukem has long been a …

The Showdown continues. In the Showdown, we pick a topic, argue both sides, and then present the results to you. Today, Ben and Frank discuss whether or notDuke Nukem is warping the minds of our children with its sexist undertones.

Ben: To say women aren't treated well in Duke Nukem 3D is to put it lightly. The game takes place in the hard-living world of one Duke Nukem, and he just wants to shoot him some aliens, take a piss, and pay some strippers to show the goods.

Would this be a game that could be made and released today? I don't think so; controversy surrounding games now begins at any hint of "adult" content, and the media outrage begins well before the game is even released. It's a shame too, as Duke Nukem 3D is gloriously over the top, and the women in the game aren't merely eye candy, they're a key tool of character development. You get the feeling that Duke is the type of guy with very limited social skills, and they mostly involve his gun and his... well, gun.

Duke Nukem 3Dtakes nothing seriously, from the death penalty to the OJ police chase to religion. Why should women be any different?

Frank: The controversy over violence in video games has been disproved by science before and by common sense repeatedly. But sexism born from video games is something that's a little more sensitive, and one of the reasons why gaming has long been a male-dominated past time. That's changing now, but Duke Nukem is the kind of game that exemplifies that old stereotype. It's a relic of a time long lost, and though it's funny, it shouldn't be taken so lightly.

I never thought I'd say this, but, seriously, this is one time when we need to think of the children. I'll tell you a story. I was once playing Duke Nukem: Time To Kill during a Christmas at home with the family. My little cousin was watching me play. Thinking it just a joke, I pulled him over to me and said, "Matthew, check this out." I proceeded to give money to a stripper and then kicked her. My cousin wouldn't stop laughing. However, the fun and games ended when, twenty minutes later, he went up to my aunt and said "Shake it, baby!" and threw coins at her before kicking her. She wept for weeks.

This can't be allowed into the hands of children. Really, it's like a snuff film. It's sick, twisted, and exists only for the purposes of sated a disgusting desire. Yet it's hard to look away, and there's something inherently interesting about it that captivates people subtly. But that doesn't change the fact that it is what it is.

Ben: That's pretty much the best story I've ever heard... so I'm somewhat at a loss for arguments.

Duke Nukem 3D is like lying: if you're going to do it, make is so huge that no one will take it seriously. I'd argue that if there was less objectification in the game it would be more disgusting; the amount that's in there makes it very clear that this is not to be taken seriously and is all in jest.

The character is basically a living cartoon of a man: he's ripped, smoking, and is very well-versed in the use of firearms, both human and alien. If you take the negative male stereotypes way too far, it's perfectly fair to go the opposite way. If anything, I'm afraid Duke is going to get a wise-cracking female sidekick in the upcoming sequel.

Frank: But isn't it all smoke and mirrors, Ben? Isn't the excess, the over-stereotyping, the sheer ridiculousness a shameful cover for the reality of the situation? This game is a piece of pornography that attempts to hide what it truly is through buffoonery. But that buffoonery is simply lies and deceit. This isn't Tomb Raider we're dealing with here; it's not just that the strippers are well-endowed and scantily clad. No, these strippers can be roughed up and abused with no repercussions. At least in Grand Theft Auto, the police will try to arrest you. That doesn't seem wrong to you?

If you give this to your children, if you accept this travesty as just "good fun," you're literally murdering the future of the human race. Murdering it like so many strippers and pigs. This game should be shunned from society and replaced with copies of Viva Piñata, and that's that.

Let's hear your thoughts. Is Duke Nukem the scourge of society? Or should we happily turn the future into an anthropomorphic concept that we then kill?